Federalist Great Proprietors

The Federalist Great Proprietors was a liberal faction and a parliamentary bloc of Austro-Hungarian politics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, consisting of an alliance of Slavic nationalists and the clergy. The faction was born in Bohemia, where the Czech people refused to recognize the common parliament due to its perceived violation of the rights of the Bohemian people; the Czechs sought to create a new constitution to replace the 1861 constitution. The Federalists came to power under Richard Belcredi, who was Minister of State from 1865 to 1867, and the Federalists won majorities of seats in the diets of Bohemia, Moravia, Carinthia, and Tirol. The Federalists opposed the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and advocated Slavic nationalism, and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria decided to give the Federalists power in 1871 to appease them. However, he secretly worked against them, and he reformed the diets in Czechoslovakia so that they were elected by direct vote; directees could no longer abstain for taking their seats, as the people would elect an opposition candidate instead. The party held only 16 parliamentary seats in the 1897 and 1901 diets, and it was very weak in the last years of the empire.